Tonight on Windtunnel!

[GP Racer]

Well, Dave DeSpane and his racing talk show, Windtunnel, are back tonight on Speed channel at 9 PM Eastern, starting there new season.

His guest will be Robin Miller, the journalist and he will be discussing the CART mess at length. Should be very interesting, especially if he has a scoop on something!

Would also like to see DeSpane apologise for his end of the year, curse laden rant. How immature was that? I'm very surprised he got away with it and is back on the air again. I like him and the show, but I thought it was over the top, and well beneath him.

[Tim Northcutt]

Robin was on SpeedNews yesterday evening as well....

He noted that OWRS keeps talking about "what is best for the Series" and the IRL keeps talking about what is "Best for open-wheele racing," but the judge has oney one obligation that will be his primary focus...what is best for CART's creditors...

He thinks it is going to be an event-filled Wednesday in court this week...

He also said that both sides could have sat down, said, "Let's take IRL's 12 best ovals and CART's 8 best road courses and make one series" and probably could have made that type of proposal work...

But there is so much hostility and bad blood between the two divided groups that he doesn't see that happening at all...

Robin has good contacts....and he is probably one of the best mostorsports journalists out there....but I don't know if he necessarily calls them quite as objectively as I would like for him to when it comes to open-wheeled racing....

It will be interesting to hear what he has to say...I always enjoy reading or listening to what Robin has to say...

[rustyfan]

Originally posted by GP Racer
Would also like to see DeSpane apologise for his end of the year, curse laden rant. How immature was that?

I've seen a clip of that, and to me it looked like nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek fun thing to wrap up 2003 - certainly didn't look like it was meant to be taken serious.

I personally found it quite funny, but then again, that's just me

[GP Racer]

Thats the way he explained it rusty, and I guess I'm the odd man out, because most of his fans seemed to love it too.

It took me by surprise, when I heard it, because I was totally unprepared for such an outburst, and you could clearly make out the curses through the beeps. I would not have wanted to be a father with his young son sitting next to me and have to explain that. Didn't think you could get away with that on TV.

Well, apparently I know different now...

By the way, Robin Miller will actually be on tonight discussing the CART situation, he only called into the show last-night, for 2 minutes. What a rip-off!

[jjspierx]

Yeah, funny, how he cut off Robin Miller after 2 minutes, and yet he let John Force talk for 30 minutes, half of the time in which he was just rambling and repeating himself about how great his team is, and how they'd bounce back after losing their champion driver to another team.

[GP Racer]

I'll be watching tonight, and I hope he'll be on for more than 2 minutes!

[GP Racer]

JJ, I hope you were listening to Miller tonight, when he was asked the question, "what does OWRS have to do to make the series successful again"?

His answer was, "get American drivers"! You rode me pretty hard in the CART forum, for saying that much, and you wrote a pretty unflattering post about "how I was acting". Well now Miller has said it, and believe me we are not the only ones.

An American series, needs American drivers.

No need to rehash that subject though...

[jjspierx]

I'll be watching the re-air tonight at midnight. As for riding you pretty hard, if I am thinking of the right post, was it the one where you were accusing KK of not caring about the American people, because he didn't hire an American driver?

[Tim Northcutt]

My Take on Robin's Visit Last Night:

The guy from Carmel asked the best question....why revive something that hasn't worked, will cost the new owners as much as it did CART to run, etc., just to keep that formula going for another few years before the OWRS guys finally have to say "enough! -- I've spent too many millions to keep this going..."

Some might argue that Tony is spending many millions, too....but he is spending cash that he earned through gate receipts from the brickary 400 and the Indy 500....two HUGE revenue sources that give him litterally hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in the IRL if he chooses to do so...and it is replenished each year via sell-out crowds, tons of concession, sponsor, licesnsing, parking, and vendor retail commissions he gets just for those two events...

If it doesn't happen in court this week, it will only be a matter of time....but open-wheeled racing is losing in the process by being split...

Turn off the life-support system....it's done...

[GP Racer]

The caller from Carmel indeed had THE question of the night, Tim, and I think its that very question that perplexes those of us who think the IRL plan is the way to go, how does OWRS possibly finance this thing?

JJ, that is the thread I was talking about, although thats not exactly what I accused KK of doing. But thats not why I brought up the point, its really just to show that there are other people out there, who believe the lack of American drivers hurt this series here at home.

I'd prefer not to start that debate again.

[jjspierx]

Well to a point I agree, that having more American drivers in the series, sure wouldn't hurt, but keep in mind Formula 1 in America on Speed Channel better ratings than CART and IRL combined without a single American driver. Why? Obviously not because they have the closet racing, or the easiest drivers names to remember. Its because the cars are the fastest, most techologically advanced, and the best drivers. The sport draws the biggest money and sponsors, and fans. CART/OWRS will never be able to compete at that level, but if they were able to get to the point where they have a decent TV package, if they can retain the big name drivers and teams(they obviously will have to build those up again, so most of the well known ones have left), then over time I think they will attract more money, sponsors and fans.

[GP Racer]

There's a difference with F1 though. I'm a big fan of that series, even though historically, we havn't been to involved in it.

Its not an American series, so therefore, I don't expect to see American drivers there. They only race here once a year. CART is an American series, that holds most of its races here. I DO expect them to have a decent amount of our drivers, especially when last year, half the field was full of rookies, and only one was an American.

I really believe this is the reason for the diminishing interest here at home.

[Bob Riebe]

Would also like to see DeSpane apologise for his end of the year, curse laden rant. How immature was that? I'm very surprised he got away with it and is back on the air again. I like him and the show, but I thought it was over the top, and well beneath him.

Several years back, on the original DSC forum I think, a fellow posted that he had met Dave Despain. From what he wrote the nasty version is the real version. He said he was arrogant and condescending.
Bob

[jjspierx]

I really dislike Dave Despane, I don't know why, he just bugs. I put up with him though, when I know there is a Champcar guest on his show. His show was ok when it started, but now whenever I turn it on, he takes phone calls for 5 minutes, has a Nascar guest for 45 minutes, takes a few more calls and emails and thats it. Plus most of the calls they choose to take, are Nascar callers. Seriously, maybe 2 calls total about Champcar, and maybe a 30 second mention of them at the beginning of the show when he does the news, but thats about it. Its pretty much the same for IRL. But if its Nascar, or trucks, or even NHRA, he'll go(or allow his guest to go on) for ever. It was nice having Robin Miller and Gentilozzi on the last few nights.

[TedN]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe
Would also like to see DeSpane apologise for his end of the year, curse laden rant. How immature was that? I'm very surprised he got away with it and is back on the air again. I like him and the show, but I thought it was over the top, and well beneath him.

On Tuesday night's show, Dave talked about "the rant". It was only a joke, as most people originally surmised.

Ted

[GP Racer]

I've kind of become addicted to the show, much to my wifes chagrin!

He is very heavy on NASCAR, but really, as much as some of us don't like it, I'm sure it pays the bills there. For every CART/IRL/F1 fan, there has to be 10 NASCAR ones. I'm sure that the NASCAR fans were sitting back, when Gentilozzi was on, and saying "who the hell is that, and why is he on my show!"

Ted, I guess I'm "old school"(I hate to admit that!)because joke or not, that rant was uncalled for, and really, if it was funny, it was only because of its shock value, not because it was truly humorous. I actually think that he was saying what was really on his mind, and if he was, he dissed half his audience, you know, those of us who are not NASCAR/Bike groupies. Not good...